Lenovo's website lists iPhone-compatible Smartband SW-B100

We chat with Remedy about their new iPhone and iPad game Agents of Storm

Apple opened 437 new retail stores, made 20 acquisitions in 2014 and teases ‘wonderful plans’ for Beats

Apple’s flow of information doesn’t end with the announcement of their Q4 2014 earnings, as the Cupertino-based company continues to outline other impressive areas of growth.

During the conference call that took place immediately following the public release of their Q4 2014 earnings, it was revealed that Apple managed to open more than 400 new Apple Stores around the globe. 437, to be specific. More than that, though, the company also outlined how their growth is strengthened with acquisitions from varying niche markets. It was revealed during the company’s Q3 2014 earnings call that the company had acquired 29 different companies since fiscal 2013, and now Apple has opened up on their most recent numbers:

20 acquisitions in 2014, with 7 of them taking place within the September quarter alone.

Many of the companies that Apple officially acquired are well known by now, including the largest of the bunch: Beats Electronics. Others, though, include LuxVue, Swell, Spotsetter and BookLamp. What the impact these acquisitions will make on Apple and its products remains to be seen, but with each new company brought into the fold, the technology they bring in is obviously meant to improve several areas.

Finally, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook also teased “wonderful things” for Beats, but wouldn’t go into any details at the time. It has been rumored heavily as of late that Beats will go through a major rebranding effort in 2015, which could include a drop in monthly subscription pricing to $5 per month.

On Monday, October 20, Apple revealed that the company had a Q4 2014 revenue of $42.1 billion, with 39 million iPhones sold by the end of it. Additionally, Apple also revealed that iTunes posted $4.6 billion in revenue for the same time period, with a cumulative app download total of over 85 billion.

Apple sold a record-breaking 5.5 million Macs in Q4 2014

Apple has already revealed the total number of iPhones, iPods, iPads and Macs that the company sold by the end of the fourth quarter in 2014, but during the conference call revealed more specifics about the record-breaking quarter.

Apple revealed during their conference call immediately following the official results for their Q4 2014 that the Mac lineup has sold a total of 5.5 million within the fourth quarter of 2014. The results prompted Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, to call them “stunning,” and that the “Back to school season voted, and Mac won.” The 5.5 million Macs in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2014 marks the highest number of Macs sold in a quarter by Apple to date.

It is also up more than 1 million year-over-year, and the total means a 21% growth from the same quarter in 2013. The total sales equals $6.6 billion. As a final note, Apple revealed that the company had sold 19 million Macs throughout the total quarter of 2014, and that sales were particularly strong for the MacBook Pro lineup, as well as the MacBook Air.

Earlier on Monday, October 20, Apple revealed that the company had earned a revenue of $42.1 billion for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2014, and that iTunes had netted $4.6 billion in sales within the same time frame. Apple also revealed that they had opened more than 400 new Apple Stores around the globe, had made 20 new acquisitions throughout their year, and that there are big plans in the works for Beats.

On October 16, Apple launched their 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, with a starting price tag of $2,499.99.

Kevin Rose Is AngelList's Million-Dollar Man

Next time Kevin Rose makes an angel investment, he has more than $1.1 million at his beck and call to do it.

Rose is the current leading man on AngelList, where 245 people have committed to put their own money into any of the deals he does. He told them he expects five seed investments per year.

Digg founder Kevin Rose

Rose has collected those commitments in just one week, since AngelList launched a feature that allows backers to put their money behind small investors as part of its investing syndicate product.

Rose does have a day job - as an investor, no less - at Google Ventures. Does all this support make him want to go solo? Apparently not.

"I'll be syndicating my Google Ventures seed deals through AngelList whenever possible," he said this morning. "I won't be returning to the independent angel world - still full-time and focused on Google Ventures."

Rose's quick ascent to the top of the AngelList leaderboard reflects the fact that he is a tech celeb, having kicked off his career as a tech television show host, and has since become Internet-famous for founding the community site Digg (he also founded a company called Milk, which didn't really go anywhere, and was bought by Google, leading to his employment there). Not to say that Rose isn't a savvy investor; his personal deals include Twitter, Square and Ngmoco.

Rose said his backers are not just his fans; many of them are accomplished tech investors on their own. "If you look at the backers, these are insanely talented folks, founders, designers, really connected folks I'd like to have involved in my business," Rose wrote via email today. He named as examples AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, author Tim Ferriss, Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, key Facebook advertising engineer Yun-Fang Juan, and Facebook designer Bobby Goodlatte.

Besides Rose, the AngelList syndicates leaderboard is full of many familiar names, several of whom also happen to have invested in each other's syndicates.

(And apparently, there is some flexibility in what will qualify as an angel, considering that Rose plans to channel his Google Ventures deals, and institutions like Betaworks are on the list.)

Path co-founder Dave Morin has more than $900,000 per deal, Launch conference creator and rabble rouser Jason Calacanis has more than $750,000, and Ferriss, Betaworks, Ravikant, Lee Jacobs, Brad Feld and Dan Bragiel all have more than $100,000. The leading woman on the list is Juan, now an EIR at the Social+Capital Partnership, with almost $50,000.

AngelList CEO Naval Ravikant

Ferriss and Betaworks have already completed syndicated funding rounds for startups: $2 million each for shipping service Shyp and sensor startup Estimote, respectively.

The syndicate program, which promises to give small investors more clout, has been met with glee by some and skepticism by others.

Various early criticisms include the expectations that angels may not be as good as VCs at helping companies through critical times, that startup founders will be turned off by angels bringing too much money and that the syndicate program is a popularity contest.

"All valid concerns," Rose said today. "It's really on a case-by-case basis; every company has different needs, depending on the stage."

Ravikant of AngelList brushed off the criticism, too. "I haven't seen a single problem or issue mentioned that isn't solvable," he said. "We are just going to execute on product. This is a 10-year mission, and our recent financing allows us to be very patient and focused."

AngelList just raised $24 million, a round that was coincidentally co-led by Google Ventures. (Those looking to find conflicts and overlaps won't have to try hard!)

However, AngelList this week turned off its email-invitation functionality, which helped angels ask people to join their syndicate, because it seemed too spammy, Ravikant said. He said the emails would come back as digests that made the terms of investing clearer.

IBM Acquires Wireless-Analysis Company Now Factory

Computing services giant IBM said today that it will acquire the Now Factory, a privately held company based in Dublin, Ireland, that creates software used to analyze wireless network usage. Financial terms were not disclosed.

IBM said Now Factory's capabilities will be added to its MobileFirst Analytics portfolio of services that analyze business data and seek to optimize the experience customers have online.

Service providers are straining under the load of data demands as consumers try to use more video, gaming and other online data on their phones and tablets. The Now Factory adds capabilities to analyze how consumers interact with various services on their phones, and to yield faster insights on their behavior, Big Blue said.

How to Make Lots of Web Video, Really Fast: Get Rid of (Most of) the Humans

Image copyright Rainer Plendl

Heads up, professional video makers: Robots may be coming for your jobs.

We've already seen that software can replace human beings who used to write and edit news stories. Now, Wochit, an Israeli-born startup, is trying to do the same thing with video news.

And it's quite possible that you've seen some of its work already: Wochit's stuff is running on big portals like Yahoo, and on many smaller sites, via distributors like Grab Media.

Wochit can take prewritten stories from outlets like Reuters and turn them into videos by assembling an appropriate mix of images, clips and narration. Human beings touch the video twice during production - once when a "moderator" quickly scans the clip to make sure the basic elements are in the right place, and once when someone reads the voice-over copy.

Wochit said the entire process takes an average of 10 minutes, and that lets the company make hundreds of clips a day.

The results have been getting better throughout the year. Now they're quite passable. Here's how Wochit handled a story this morning about President Obama and the Too Big to Fail banks:

No one's going to mistake this stuff for a "60 Minutes" report. But, depending on the use case, it may certainly be good enough. Wochit is aimed at Web video, where lots of people are looking for ad-friendly clips that users might also click on. But in the not-so-distant future, I can see this stuff working on conventional TV, too.

Eventually, Wochit CEO Keith McAllister said, the company wants to set up a self-service system where anyone could feed it text and get a usable video. If a brand like, um, AllThingsD wanted to add our own narration (or whatever), we could do that, too.

This is likely worrisome for some human beings who currently get paid to edit and produce news videos. But humans have been grappling with the pros and cons of automation for a long time.

And if you want to put a sunnier face on it, feel free to paraphrase my take on it when I wrote about the possibility that Narrative Science's story-writing robots might take my job: "The trick for content makers like myself is to find work that only content makers like myself can do - work where human qualities like experience, judgment and creativity get rewarded. And if we can't do that, we ought to be doing something else, anyway."

Here's a quick interview I conducted (but didn't edit) with McAllister last week:

U.S. Opposes Tech Companies' Requests to Disclose Surveillance

The U.S. Department of Justice is formally opposing requests by technology companies to disclose more information about the frequency with which they are contacted by the U.S. government to give up user data under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Responding to petitions from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn, the government shut them down, as expected, because it said disclosures would pose a risk to national security. It's unclear when a ruling will come in the secret court inside the Justice Department headquarters where the case is being held.

"Such information would be invaluable to our adversaries, who could thereby derive a clear picture of where the Government's surveillance efforts are directed and how its surveillance activities change over time," the brief said. "If our adversaries know which platforms the Government does not surveil, they can communicate over those platforms when, for example, planning a terrorist attack or the theft of state secrets."

Google said in a statement today, "We're disappointed that the Department of Justice opposed our petition for greater transparency around FISA requests for user information. We also believe more openness in the process is necessary since no one can fully see what the government has presented to the court."

And Microsoft: "We will continue to press for additional transparency, which is critical to understanding the facts and having an informed debate about the right balance between personal privacy and national security."

Yahoo's response: ""We are disappointed with the Justice Department's decision to bar us and other Internet companies from publicly disclosing the specific number of user data requests that we receive from the U.S. Government under national security statutes. Yahoo and many other technology firms have made the commitment to share the number and type of government requests we receive for our users' data through regular reports. The U.S. Government's decision to block our ability to share with our users more granular information related to national security requests ultimately breeds mistrust and suspicion-both of the United States and of companies that must comply with government legal directives. As we've said before, the United States should lead the world when it comes to transparency, accountability, and respect of civil liberties and human rights. We urge the U.S. Government to reconsider this decision and grant our petition for greater transparency around national security requests for user data."

And LinkedIn weighed in: "LinkedIn deeply respects and supports the U.S. government's strong interest in, and its obligation to protect, national security. However, we believe this interest must be weighed against transparency and accountability. We firmly believe that what we are seeking - the disclosure of the number of U.S. national security-related requests that we receive - is consistent with national security interests, the law and our commitment to transparency."

In its brief, the government rejected the companies' arguments about First Amendment rights and said that public debate around surveillance was a justification for more transparency.

It said: "Contrary to the companies' argument that they have a First Amendment right to disclose this sensitive national security information, it is well-settled that prohibitions on the disclosure of classified information, such as the ones contained in this Court's orders, satisfy the First Amendment. The Government has a compelling interest in protecting such national security information from disclosure, and the prohibitions on disclosure are narrowly tailored to protect that interest."

And, regarding all the public outcry since the Edward Snowden disclosures about widespread data collection: "Although the Government has attempted to release as much information as possible about the intelligence collection activities overseen by this court, the public debate about surveillance does not give the companies the First Amendment right to disclose information that the Government has determined must remain classified."

Oh, and for good measure, the Justice Department also said that decisions about declaratory relief were out of the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where the dispute is being held.

Here's the brief:

Motion Declaratory Judgement 131002

Investment Adviser and Entrepreneur

I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and agression [sic] amongst mankind ... To that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.

- From the LinkedIn profile summary of Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested Tuesday as the alleged Silk Road mastermind "Dread Pirate Roberts"

Schools Complain iOS 7 Upgrade Stripped Filters From Students' iPads

Apple's iOS 7 was supposed to make it easier for schools to manage the iPads that are becoming increasingly common in the classroom. But for some, the latest version of the mobile operating system is proving to be a bit of a headache.

A number of schools that have upgraded their iPad deployments to iOS 7 said that installing the new OS removed the supervision profiles they had installed on the devices. This rendered those iPads unsupervised, depriving administrators of their remote-management privileges and eliminating the filtering protections they had established to prevent students from accessing inappropriate content they might stumble upon outside school.

"Apple did not realize that installing iOS 7 would remove our (and thousands of organizations across the country) safety protection measure, which now makes the iPad devices unfiltered when accessing the Internet away from school," said a memo from the Manitou Springs (Colo.) School District 14 to parents, verified by AllThingsD. "In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled."

And Manitou Springs School District 14 is not an isolated case. According to Apple's support forums and some external IT discussion boards, schools across the U.S. are grappling with the issue, which is causing a lot of angst and frustration for administrators.

At Manitou, the district ended up collecting hundreds of iPads that had been upgraded to iOS 7, wiping them, and then reinstalling the OS along with the apps and student content originally on the devices. "It's been a major undertaking," Superintendent Ed Longfield told AllThingsD.

That's particularly the case for affected schools with large iPad deployments, some of which have gone so far as to adjust their network settings to block over-the-air iOS 7 updates. "When we first caught wind of the bug, I tweaked our DNS to stop iPads from checking for software updates," a school administrator who declined to be named told AllThingsD. "That helped us to keep a lot of our iPads running iOS 6.1.3. We plan to maintain those settings until Apple addresses the issue."

And Apple is working hard to do just that, though it's not yet clear when it will have a resolution.

"Some business and education users have reported that their supervised devices have reverted to unsupervised when they upgrade to iOS 7," Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told AllThingsD. "We are aware of this issue, and will have a fix this month."

HTC Posts Quarterly Net Loss

HTC Corp. posted its first quarterly net loss since listing in 2002, as an expensive effort to revive its brand through its high-end HTC One smartphone has so far failed to boost sales.

As with former smartphone market leaders like Nokia Corp. and BlackBerry Ltd., HTC has found it difficult to hold its ground against fast-growing Samsung Electronics Co. and low-cost Chinese rivals. The Taiwanese smartphone maker previously warned it was expecting a loss for the third quarter due to high manufacturing and marketing costs for the HTC One while sales shrank.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The Real Reason for Fab's Layoffs: A Big, Bad Bet on Flash Sales

"The Path to Profitability @Fab."

That's the title of a blog post published yesterday by Fab CEO Jason Goldberg, in which he explains his rationale for the company's most recent round of layoffs, which totaled 101 people, bringing total cuts at the e-commerce company over the last two months to more than 250 employees, or 37 percent of the staff.

"The impetus behind this decision is our plan to accelerate Fab's path to profitability," Goldberg's post read. "We are certain that driving towards a profitable Fab in the near-term is the way to build the best Fab for the long-term benefit of our customers."

So, in short, Goldberg's explanation is that Fab had to cut people, because it has decided - seemingly out of nowhere - that now is the time to focus on profitability over growth.

That push for profitability may indeed be a big factor in these moves.

But it's not the only reason.

What Goldberg didn't admit in the public explanation is that the company has had to drastically cut its headcount because it made a giant bet on being able to build a big, sustainable business over the long term around flash sales - the selling of a limited amount of product inventory that's available only for short periods of time, designed to spur impulse buying.

Fab pumped a ton of venture capital into this fad, pushing staff counts ever higher while acquiring companies overseas.

And that bet failed.

Fab recognized this, and has pivoted to a more traditional retail model where it sells products over a long period of time and holds that inventory itself so it can get it in the hands of its customers quicker. Goldberg has convinced enough investors to give Fab another chance - perhaps for the last time - raising more than $160 million in a Series D round to fund the transition. And it so happens that the new business model requires a smaller staff than the former model.

In acknowledging all of this, Goldberg could have also acknowledged that he, his exec team and board messed up; they made the wrong bet. But he didn't.

Asked for comment on Goldberg's layoffs explanation and what it left out, a Fab spokesperson said in an email to AllThingsD: "We acknowledge that flash sales is a flawed business model."

Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a member of Fab's board, agreed with that assessment.

"In a perfect world, we probably could have gotten here in a straighter line," he said.

But the company, he said, possesses a bunch of valuable assets it wouldn't have if not for the original flash-sales iteration of Fab: A large customer base, pretty good brand awareness and strong relationships with suppliers.

The one asset it has a lot less of today, though, as a result: Employees.

StudySpots Helps Students Escape The Campus Bubble

Venture Investors See Wave Of Tech Cash Coming From The East

Facebook Hits 100M Users In Africa, Half The Continent’s Internet-Connected Population

TheTake Just Raised $2M So You Can Buy That Thing You Saw In That Movie

How Investors Are Trying To Change The Culture Of Silicon Valley

PCH’s Liam Casey On The “Renaissance Of Prototyping”

Teleport’s Experiment In Nomadic Work Starts With $2.5M And A Tool For The SF Bay Area

Valor Water Analytics Helps Water Utilities Stay Afloat As Customers Conserve

Kickstarter opens up to projects from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Ireland

Flipboard now plays you video ads

FiftyThree’s Paper goes the collaborative route with new Mix platform

Build your own Siri: Api.ai offers voice integration for all

Microsoft launches OneNote for Android Wear and Share extension for iOS 8, updates Office Lens for Windows Phone

Google expands Maps Gallery so everyone can find, create and share customized maps

Fueled by Rise of LTE, Qualcomm Says 500 Phones in the Works Using Its Chips

The global adoption of LTE networks is helping Qualcomm win a spot inside hundreds of phones and dozens of tablets headed to market in the coming months.

"We are very excited about the types of devices that are going to come out," Qualcomm Technologies Executive VP Murthy Renduchintala said in an interview following the company's earnings report on Tuesday. Qualcomm reported results ahead of its forecast, and raised its expectations for the coming year amid stronger-than-expected phone business.

Renduchintala said that at least 500 Snapdragon-powered smartphones and 40 tablets are in the works. Some of that momentum has come as more and more wireless carriers are upgrading to LTE networks - a market Qualcomm has dominated.

New Snapdragon-powered devices range from high-end flagship phones to models aimed at boosting business in lower-end models destined for China and India. Qualcomm plans to announce several new efforts at those emerging markets before the end of the year.

"The holiday season is going to be a very exciting period for us," he said.

Two of Qualcomm's latest design wins were announced this week. Motorola is using Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro at the heart of the X8 processing engine that powers a series of new Droid models for Verizon Wireless.

Meanwhile, a Qualcomm chip is also powering the new Asus-built Nexus 7 tablet that Google announced on Wednesday. Renduchintala said to expect more tablets running a variety of operating systems to be announced using Qualcomm chips.

"You'll see a number of announcements come out over the next few months," he said.

Serenity Now: Apps to Help Manage Your Stress and Mood

When people ask me how I'm doing, my standard answer is "I'm fine," or "Doing well, thanks." But sometimes I'm lying straight to their face.

As anyone knows, life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. I stress about work. I fret about money. I worry about my family. The list goes on. And though I try to relieve some of the frustration by going for a run or heading to the beach, I'm not so good about actually dealing with my feelings. Instead, I just internalize everything until it culminates to a breaking point, like this weekend, when a broken picture frame led to an epic meltdown. It wasn't a pretty scene, people.

[ See post to watch video ]

Knowing that this isn't a healthy way to deal with things, I tried out two smartphone apps, Senti and Stress Tracker, which are designed to help keep tabs on your mood.

Unlike the stress-monitoring tools Tink and HeartMath Inner Balance Sensor, which my colleague Katie Boehret reviewed a few weeks ago, the two mobile apps are free, and don't require an extra piece of hardware for your smartphone. They also don't measure your heart rate to calculate stress levels. Rather, the apps require you to tell them how you're feeling.

By taking a more active approach, both companies hope that their apps will help people better understand what causes them stress, so they can do something about it. In the week that I've been using the apps, I can't say either one significantly reduced any stress in my life. But the simple exercise of logging how I was feeling was pretty insightful, and I even learned a couple of relaxation exercises. Of the two, Stress Tracker was more helpful.

Stress Tracker is available for iOS devices, and there's also a Web app. It allows you to rate your stress on a sliding scale of one to 10, with one being relaxed and 10 being super-stressed. After you've selected your stress level, you can add it to your daily diary with a single tap of a button, and then add more details about what's affecting your mood.

For example, the app provides fields for selecting sources of stress, stress symptoms and lifestyle habits. You can also select from a group of emoticons to express your current mood and add personal notes, so you have a record of how you were feeling that day and what contributed to your mood. There is no limit to the number of entries you can make in a day.

Since your day can get hectic, I recommend setting up reminders to add your details to Stress Tracker, which you can do through the app's Settings menu. I set them for 9 am, noon, 6 pm and 9 pm. Strangely, the alerts always came a few minutes after the actual times.

Still, this exercise was useful in a couple of ways. For one, it actually made me stop and think about how I was feeling and how it was affecting my mental and physical being. And, by doing so, it also gave me an opportunity to do something about it.

Using the History and Insights section of the app, I could see that my top sources of stress were work- and money-related, which manifested in muscular, cognitive and emotional symptoms.

Stress Tracker provides a pretty good Advice section, where you can read up on some tips for relieving stress. It offers basic tips like going for a short walk or taking deep breaths, and also breaks it down by source, symptoms and action plan. There's also the option to buy relaxation exercises and rage-control programs from within the app.

Since I tend to hold a lot of my stress in my shoulders and neck, I bought the Progressive Muscle Relaxation program for 99 cents. To be honest, the woman's voice creeped me out, but once I got past that, the exercises, which included making and releasing a fist, were actually helpful. One thing I noticed, though, is that if you have your iPhone set to auto-lock after a certain number of minutes, the exercises will suspend once the screen turns off, so I had to set my phone to not automatically turn off the screen while doing these exercises.

Senti is currently only available for iOS, but an Android version is in the works. The app takes a different approach than Stress Tracker. Rather than measuring stress, the app asks you various questions throughout the day to help gauge your mood, such as "How does today compare to most?"

From the Settings menu, you can specify how many questions the app sends you (the maximum is 10 per day), and when you'll receive these questions. But the timing of the questions is mostly random. Sometimes I'd get two questions within half an hour of each other, and sometimes a few hours would go by before I got the next query. One thing I recommend is allowing push notifications when you first install the app, because otherwise the onus is on you to remember to engage with the app.

Like Stress Tracker, Senti was helpful in that it made me stop and think about myself for once. In some ways, Senti was even more thought-provoking than Stress Tracker. For example, I got a question that asked, "To get to where I am today, I had to give up ___." It's something that I've never really considered, and it forced me to think about an answer (though you can skip a question, too). In this way, I felt like Senti was more a digital diary than a stress reliever, which is useful in its own right.

The app allows you to see your full history of moods in bar graph form, so you can keep track of how you're doing and compare it to other days. That said, I wish there were a way to view how you answered questions for each day, so you could see if you might answer differently on another day. The company told me it is working on adding this feature in the future, as well as giving users more control over question topics and timing.

It's easy to get caught up in the chaos of a day, but it's also okay to take some time for yourself. Whether you need to express how you're feeling at the moment or need a stress break, Senti and Stress Tracker are easy and free ways to do this.

How Digg and Betaworks Built an Ad for a Steve Carell Movie in a Day

If you scanned Digg yesterday, you might have seen an ad for "The Way, Way Back," a new movie where Steve Carell "plays an awesome jerk."

No big deal. The news aggregator has run lots of ads in the past. What's interesting is the company that built the ad - Digg owner Betaworks, using other parts of Betaworks' collection of new-media startups.

Here's the story, told via Digg general manager Jake Levine: Last Thursday, Digg talked to Graham Retzik, who heads up digital marketing for Fox Searchlight; Retzik was looking for a way to give "The Way, Way, Back," a small movie with a few big names, a quick push.

Digg's solution: Build an ad built on top of Betaworks' Tapestry app, using Betaworks' Giphy, a GIF search engine/producer.

Retzik said yes, and a Betaworks "creative SWAT team" went to work. A day later, they had produced this, which has run on Digg and Tumblr - Betaworks' first seed investment (Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the ad had also run on the Betaworks-backed Bloglovin network):

This is Betaworks' first "cross-brand partnership," Levine says. But I would expect to see more to come.

Michael Dell Is "At Peace" With Whatever His Shareholders Decide

Asa Mathat | D: All Things Digital

Michael Dell made what reads like his final appeal to shareholders of the computing company that bears his name, seeking their approval of a $24.6 billion leveraged buyout he has proposed with the private equity firm Silver Lake.

"The decision is now yours. I am at peace either way and I will honor your decision," Dell wrote in an open letter filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission early this morning.

The letter came after a day of significant developments in the ongoing drama surrounding the fate of what was once the world's largest supplier of personal computers. Dell and Silver Lake raised their bid by a dime to $13.75 a share in the hope of convincing the company's board to change some of the rules governing the shareholder vote. Naturally, that didn't sit well with Carl Icahn, the activist investor stalking the company with a competing shareholder proposal of his own. He resorted to writing verse on Twitter to make his case.

Without mentioning him by name, Dell criticized some of the proposals floated by Icahn, including the sale of assets and a leveraged recapitalization, saying they would be "destructive to the company." Should the buyout be rejected by shareholders, he said he won't support any of Icahn's proposals. Dell remains the company's largest single shareholder, with about 14 percent to 15 percent of the shares outstanding.

Dell also reiterated the case he and Silver Lake made in a joint letter yesterday, saying the "non-vote-equals-no-vote" provision of the shareholder vote process is unfair. "Currently, over 25 percent of the unaffiliated shares have not voted," he wrote. "This means that even if a majority of the unaffiliated shares that vote on the transaction want to accept our offer, the will of the majority may be defeated by the shares that do not vote. I think this is clearly unfair."

The special committee of Dell's board hasn't yet formally responded to the latest offer.

Dell's full letter is below:

Dear Fellow Shareholders,

You have undoubtedly read many stories about our efforts to take Dell private. I wanted you to hear directly from me.

I believe that taking Dell private is the right thing to do for the company. We need to transform, and we need to do it quickly. The transformation is not without risks and challenges, and I believe that we can do what we need to do better as a private company than a public company.

When I came to the Dell board last August to ask if the board would consider the possibility of a going private transaction, I understood that the independent directors would control the process, and I made clear that I was ready to partner with whoever would pay the highest price. I encouraged every interested party to pay the highest price they could.

After one of the most thorough processes in history, the highest price that any of the parties was willing to pay was $13.65 per share. Although no other party has offered to pay more than $13.65 per share, Silver Lake and I have now increased our offer to $13.75 per share, an increase to public shareholders of approximately $150 million, which is our best and final offer.

I believe this offer is in the best interests of the company and our shareholders. Certain other parties have been proposing alternatives such as leveraged recapitalizations, sales of assets and other steps that I believe would be destructive to the company and that I do not and will not support.

The decision is now yours. I am at peace either way and I will honor your decision. Our agreement requires the vote of a majority of the unaffiliated shares - your shares - to approve the transaction. Unfortunately, our agreement also provides that shares that do not vote count as votes against the transaction.

Currently, over 25 percent of the unaffiliated shares have not voted. This means that even if a majority of the unaffiliated shares that vote on the transaction want to accept our offer, the will of the majority may be defeated by the shares that do not vote. I think this is clearly unfair.

When we offered to increase our bid to $13.75 per share, we also asked the Special Committee of the Board to change this unfair vote standard and allow the will of the majority of the unaffiliated shares that vote on the transaction to control the outcome.

Particularly given the efforts of others to promote alternative transactions, and the ability of those parties to vote their shares when my shares do not count, it makes no sense whatsoever to skew the playing field even further by counting shares not voting as if they supported the opposition group.

If the Special Committee agrees to our increased bid of $13.75 per share, and agrees to create a fair and level playing field in which you can decide, I will look forward to your decision.

Sincerely,
Michael S. Dell

Texas voter ID law reinstated in victory for Republican-backed measures

US Justice Department has criticised Texas law as being the states latest tool to suppress minority voters in elections

A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated Texas tough voter ID law for the November election, which the US Justice Department had condemned as the states latest means of suppressing minority voter turnout.

The ruling by the New Orleans-base fifth circuit court of appeals temporarily blocks last weeks ruling by US district judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi, who determined the law unconstitutional and similar to a poll tax designed to dissuade minorities from voting.

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Hurricane Gonzalo kills one in St Martin and grows to category 3 storm

Storm sweeps into Caribbean with greater force than expected, destroying boats and moving north-west while continuing to grow

Hurricane Gonzalo grew into a major category 3 storm Tuesday and is expected to strengthen further as it heads toward Bermuda after killing a man in the Dutch Caribbean territory of St Martin, authorities said.

The storm had top sustained winds of nearly 115mph and was centered about 770 miles south of Bermuda on Tuesday afternoon, said the US National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving north-west at 13mph.

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Will Amazon's Unit Growth Bottom Out in Q2?

There's not a whole lot that Wall Street dislikes right now about Amazon, which is heading into its second-quarter earnings report today after markets close. Investors have pushed the online retailer's stock price to record heights in recent weeks - more than $309 a share, and a market cap of $140 billion at one point - before backing off slightly to see Amazon close out Wednesday's after-hours trading at about $300 a share.

Despite the good vibes, there are problem areas. The company's year-over-year growth of units sold has been decelerating, for example, which could be worrisome if it continues.

J.P. Morgan's Doug Anmuth wrote in a research note that he is expecting some stabilization in the decelerating trend, but noted that, "we ... believe sub-30% would be concerning to investors." The launch of the Kindle in some giant new markets, such as India and China, could put the trend of deceleration to an end in the second half of the year.

Wall Street will also be keeping a close eye on the company's international business, especially after eBay cited macroeconomic softness in Korea and parts of Europe when it reported earnings last week.

Investors will also likely look for some commentary on the same-day and next-day AmazonFresh grocery delivery business, which, after five-plus years of experimentation solely in Seattle, recently started serving the Los Angeles area. If Amazon can figure out how to at least break even on that resource-intensive business, it will likely then load up the delivery vehicles with higher-margin, higher-cost products.

But it will be a costly build-out, and could impact margins negatively in the short term. Similarly, fulfillment-center expansion and price cuts on AWS offerings could also drag down margins.

Amazon is forecasting revenue of $14.5 billion to $16.2 billion, with analysts expecting the company to register earnings per share of four cents to six cents on $15.7 billion in revenue.

BlackBerry Sacks 250 Employees

They're swinging the axe again over at BlackBerry. The struggling smartphone pioneer, which last year cut thousands of jobs, cut a few hundred more earlier this week.

In a statement to AllThingsD, a BlackBerry spokesman confirmed that the company sacked 250 employees working at a Waterloo, Ontario, product-testing facility this past Tuesday.

"These employees were part of the New Product Testing Facility, a department that supports BlackBerry's manufacturing and R&D efforts," spokesman Alex Kinsella said. "This is part of the next stage of our turnaround plan to increase efficiencies and scale our company correctly for new opportunities in mobile computing."

News of the layoffs follows a dismal first-quarter earnings report from BlackBerry, whose new BlackBerry 10 smartphones aren't gaining nearly the traction needed to pull the company out of the mud. BlackBerry employed about 12,000 workers as of March, following job cuts of about 5,000 last year.

Don Mattrick Debuts as New Zynga CEO, With Loss Expected in Q2

Former Microsoft Xbox head and new Zynga CEO Don Mattrick will helm his first quarterly report and conference call later today, after the company's founder and former CEO Mark Pincus removed himself from the top job several weeks ago.

Unfortunately for Mattrick, the San Francisco online gaming company is expected to report a second-quarter loss of seven cents per share, a decline from last year. On an adjusted basis, the loss will be less. Revenue is also expected to be down, around $185 million. Zynga will report after the markets close.

Such lackluster results might be the new normal for a while, with Zynga still in turnaround mode as it seeks to find lucrative new businesses, especially in mobile.

The tone and tenor of the new leader will be much watched by Wall Street, which will be interested in what Mattrick has in store. And although the Q2 results are not under his watch, Mattrick has already been at the job since July 8, working at its HQ in the city, having moved his family from up north to a house he owns in Silicon Valley.

One can expect a tougher message from Mattrick, who has a lot of experience in turnaround situations, and very little sugar-coating of the difficult situation that the company finds itself in now.

He might not get too specific, though, such as whether or not he will preside over additional staff reductions. Such cuts had already started under Pincus, who laid off more than 500 employees in June.

Pincus will apparently be on the call later today at the start, but only for a short while, as it will clearly be Mattrick's show from now on.

Taking Aim at Cricket, T-Mobile Moves MetroPCS Into 15 New Markets

T-Mobile followed through Thursday on its promise to quickly expand its recently acquired MetroPCS brand into new cities.

The company announced a $40-per-month service and a pair of new devices that will come to 15 new markets as part of the MetroPCS expansion.

In the new cities, the MetroPCS brand will be used atop T-Mobile's network but set up its own stores, mostly through third-party exclusive dealerships.

MetroPCS will offer two new handsets in the new cities - the Nokia Lumia 521 Windows Phone and LG's Optimus F3 Android device. Customers will also have the option of choosing from six other models or bringing their own device.

The "$40, period" rate plan includes unlimited talk, text and data (including 500 megabytes of high-speed data), as well as taxes and fees for $40 per month.

"We're doubling the reach of MetroPCS in one fell swoop," T-Mobile chief marketing officer Mike Sievert said in a phone interview on Thursday. MetroPCS' current operation reaches about 100 million people. With the new cities, MetroPCS will be available to an additional 40 million people, with more markets planned for before the end of the year.

The move comes as T-Mobile rival AT&T is looking to acquire MetroPCS rival Leap Wireless, which sells under the Cricket brand. T-Mobile completed its MetroPCS purchase in May.

Cricket markets are a major focus of T-Mobile's expansion plans for MetroPCS, CEO John Legere said in an interview earlier this month.

"The vast majority of where we are headed are Leap markets," Sievert said. "AT&T is going after Leap, [but] it is going to take them months to get this done. Our view is, Leap customers deserve a better experience."

The new MetroPCS markets are:

Baltimore, Md.
Birmingham, Ala.
Cleveland and Akron, Ohio
Corpus Christi, Texas
Fresno, Calif.
Houston, Texas
Memphis, Tenn.
New Orleans, La.
Rio Grande Valley, Texas
San Antonio and Austin, Texas
San Diego, Calif.
Seattle and Tacoma, Wash.
Tallahassee, Fla.
Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio
Washington, D.C.

Watsi Receives $1.2M in Funding to Push Forward the Nonprofit Tech Startup

Silicon Valley's tech scene is often accused of being self-absorbed and unjustifiably confident that its ideas are good for the greater world. See: George Packer's takedown of tech's involvement in politics in the New Yorker. "The imperative to change the world has recently led some Silicon Valley leaders to imagine that the values and concepts behind their success can be uploaded to the public sphere," he wrote.

Team Watsi, with Chase Adam at right

What about nonprofit work for the greater good? The tech industry doesn't have the strongest showing there, either. Though tech-savvy nonprofits like Kiva and Charity Water seem to be doing well, they remain on the periphery of the technology scene.

So it was interesting to see Watsi, a site that helps crowdfund medical treatments, steal the show at the last Y Combinator Demo Day, the high-status startup science fair at the end of the three-month accelerator program that has huge pull among investors.

During each break at Demo Day in March, the standard question to ask in the coffee line is, "Which did you like best today?" And this time, the answer I invariably got was "Watsi."

While often the most-hyped YC startups raise $4 million seed rounds, Watsi obviously wasn't going that route. It's a nonprofit; it has no equity to sell.

But Watsi is announcing today that it has indeed raised a round: $1.2 million from Tencent, Paul Graham, Ron Conway, Vinod Khosla and other investors.

"There's no expectation of return, but we want investors who hold us accountable," said Watsi co-founder Chase Adam in an interview this week.

Watsi is a "100 percent" nonprofit, in the model of Donors Choose. All the money that people commit online for medical treatments is received directly by the recipients. Watsi pays for its own administrative, staffing and other fees with the funding it just received.

Other than the fact that it doesn't want to make money, Watsi looks just like any other tech startup. It has a young team of six in San Francisco. It's based around crowdfunding, like so many other new companies in tech. Patients' personal stories are posted online, and donors add incremental funding toward their goals.

The company now has 16 partners, which include networks of hospitals around the world. It has funded 500 total patients in 16 countries in 11 months of operation.

$1.2 million is enough to keep that team going for the next 18 months, and to aim to triple that number in the next year, Adam said.

The funding also allows Adam and his team to not think about raising money for the next year and a half, unlike the traditional nonprofit model of having a division of the organization with their hand out at all times, he noted.

While Watsi is still the only (on-purpose) nonprofit that Y Combinator has ever accepted, Adam said he's hopeful that it's on the cusp of a larger movement.

"There's a lot of young money in Silicon Valley," he said. "As those people start to get older, they will start to get more philanthropic. But they'll want to support nonprofits that operate like businesses they understand. And I think that could have a massive impact, on a global scale."

Betable Snags Zynga VP for Chief Revenue Officer Post

Betable, the startup that lets developers integrate real-money gambling into their virtual games, announced Thursday it hired Ryan Linton as its new Chief Revenue Officer. Linton comes most recently from his position at Zynga as Vice President of Revenue Operations, responsible for building more revenue channels at the social gaming giant and creating partnerships with other companies.

Samsung Gear S Lands In The UK October 24th For £335

Awesome 3D Printed Paper Airplane Machine Gun (video)

The perfect Popcorn Bowl for movie night will remove kernels for you

The colder it gets, the more we want to stay indoors. Once Fall is over, we won't bother going outside unless it's to clean our cars, go to work, or buy groceries. That being said, the only thing you need to worry about is finding enough entertainment to last you through the winter. One of the best ways to pass some time is to sit down and watch your favorite show or a good movie.

We all know that popcorn is the best snack for this scenario because it's easy to make, warm, and lasts for the duration of whatever you're watching (most of the time). The only problem with this treat is that there are kernels at the bottom, waiting among your final few handfuls of popcorn to try and break your teeth. You already have a few kernel shells making a home in your gums, so if there was a way to remove the excess that can't be eaten, how much would you be willing to pay?

If your answer was exactly $75, then you're in luck. This stoneware Popcorn Bowl has a colander-inspired bottom, in that there are holes just big enough to filter out the kernels that didn't feel like popping. It's a pretty high price for the novelty, seeing that stoneware bowls are already somewhat costly on their own. If it's worth it as a popcorn bowl will be up to you and your wallet to decide.

Available for purchase on UncommonGoods

[ The perfect Popcorn Bowl for movie night will remove kernels for you copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Ice Compression Utility Wrap helps reduce inflammation as fast as possible

It was just the week before that we talked about the Professional Trainer's Compression Ice Wrap, and here we are with the $99.99 Ice Compression Utility Wrap. In a nutshell, the Ice Compression Utility Wrap happens to be the latest advance where cold therapy is concerned. This is an innovative, versatile system which will come with a flexible universal wrap as well as a large (6 x 6 ) ice cell. Using it is a snap, where all that you need to do is to fill up the cell with ice, and then make use of the wrap to apply cold compression on just almost anywhere. It does not matter whether it is used on the ankle, elbow, wrist, shin, calf, foot, hand, forearm or bicep, it will still be effective. As the ice begins to melt, air will be released from the cell in order to have it maintain optimal contact.

The Ice Compression Utility Wrap is perhaps perfect for as well as inflammation from ankle sprains, tennis elbow, wrist sprains, shin splints, plantar fasciitis and other kinds of problems. Basically, this is a "one size fits all" purchase, where it will make use of ordinary ice cubes - which means just about anyone will be able to make good use of it. Of course, this does not mean I mean harm on anyone, but prevention is better than cure, right?
[ Ice Compression Utility Wrap helps reduce inflammation as fast as possible copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Willie P. Richardson – Phone Pranks Greatest Hits

Willie P. Richardson - Phone Pranks Greatest Hits

(2 Pack) NB-4L Battery and Charger Kit for CANON PowerShot Elph 100 300 310 330 HS SD780 SD1400 IS SD1100 IS SD960 IS SD940 IS SD 780 IS Vixia Mini Cameras – Includes: 2 Vivitar Ultra High Capacity Rechargeable 850mAH Li-ion Batteries + AC/DC Vivitar Rapid Travel Charger + Cleaning Kit + MagicFiber Microfiber Lens Cleaning Cloth

(2 Pack) NB-4L Battery and Charger Kit for CANON PowerShot Elph 100 300 310 330 HS SD780 SD1400 IS SD1100 IS SD960 IS SD940 IS SD 780 IS Vixia Mini Cameras - Includes: 2 Vivitar Ultra High Capacity Rechargeable 850mAH Li-ion Batteries + AC/DC Vivitar Rapid Travel Charger + Cleaning Kit + MagicFiber Microfiber Lens Cleaning Cloth

• Vivitar Brand Battery and Charger Kit. High quality, long lasting, market leading performance at a fraction of the price.
• The charger plugs into any standard AC outlet. Also includes 12V DC Car Charger and Euro Adapter.
• The Vivitar NB-4L batteries communicate with the Canon series camera, so you can always check the remaining capacity, shutter count and recharge performance on the cameras power source info screen.
• Canon NB-4L Replacement. 100% Compatible with the Canon PowerShot Elph 100 300 310 330 HS SD780 SD1400 IS SD1100 IS SD960 IS SD940 IS SD 780 IS Vixia MiniCameras.
• Backed with DigitalGoja 30-Day 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. No Hassle Returns and Refunds.

VIVITAR Brand. High quality, long lasting, Market leading performance at a fraction of the price.- New Digital Camera Battery for Canon (Replacement for Canon NB-4L)
- Lithium Ion Rechargeable Batteries.
- This battery features Lithium Ion Technology, which ensures maximum battery life and maximum power.
- Also, Li-Ion batteries are lightweight and can be charged or discharged at any time without developing so called "memory effect", so they never lose their ability to hold a full charg

CablesFrLess 3ft Braided High Quality Durable Micro B 2.0 USB Charging / Data Sync Cable fits Android, Windows phone, Samsung Galaxy S5, and other micro USB 2.0 compatible devices (Dark Green)

CablesFrLess 3ft Braided High Quality Durable Micro B 2.0 USB Charging / Data Sync Cable fits Android, Windows phone, Samsung Galaxy S5, and other micro USB 2.0 compatible devices (Dark Green)

• Compatible with Newest Samsung Galaxy S5!
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This package contains: (1x) CablesFrLess Brand 3ft Braided High Quality Durable Micro B USB Charging / Data Sync Cable + (1x) Microfiber cleaning cloth printed with the CablesFrLess Logo. This high quality cord is available in longer 6 feet and 10 feet lengths. This cord is compatible with Android Devices, Windows phones, Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, and S5, as well as most devices that accept Micro USB 2.0. Android is a registered trademark of Google inc. Samsung and Galaxy are trademar

Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T631 for Mac

Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T631 for Mac

• Made to match Mac: Brushed metallic body and silky-smooth touch surface perfectly complement the sleek looks of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air
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• Bluetooth wireless pairs multiple devices: Connects to your Mac laptop or desktop with easy switching between computers
• Charge over USB: No battery hassles. Just 1 minute of charge time powers your mouse for an hour. (Based on typical user experience. Your results may vary.)

Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T631 for MacBeautifully crafted. Sophisticated by design. Gorgeous brushed metallic body, slim profile and smooth touch surface match the sleek looks of the MacBook Super-thin, feather-light and ultra-portable Minimalist design with Bluetooth connectivity to multiple Mac computers See Detailed FeaturesLogitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T631 for MacLove the look of your MacBook? Add a little more of what you love with a mouse that

Facebook Trading at Highest Price Since Week of IPO

On an average day, over the past year, shares of Facebook have hovered in the low-to-mid 20s, at least 10 points beneath the company's debut price of $38 per share in May of last year.

But Thursday was not an average day.

Following the news of a massive earnings beat on Wednesday afternoon, shares of Facebook are trading at their highest levels since IPO, at nearly $34 per share about an hour before the market closes. That's a single-day gain of nearly 30 percent.

Probably worth noting, too, that Facebook's trading volume is at a high, with more than 300 million shares exchanging hands before market close. That's a volume number that's second only to the company's IPO date, where more than half a billion shares moved through the market.

What drove the massive gains? Facebook finally showed a drastic shift from desktop to mobile monetization in its earnings numbers, as mobile ad revenue now accounts for 41 percent of Facebook's overall ads business.

Mobile first? Perhaps not quite yet, but soon enough.

Apple Bought a Ton of AAPL Last Quarter

We are very fortunate to be in a position to more than double the size of the capital return program we announced last year. We believe so strongly that repurchasing our shares represents an attractive use of our capital that we have dedicated the vast majority of the increase in our capital return program to share repurchases."

- Apple CEO Tim Cook, April 2013

Apple's share buyback program is proving to be quite a bit larger than originally conceived.

Though its original plan called for the repurchase of 10 million shares in its third fiscal quarter of 2013, Apple instead bought up 36 million shares. It spent about $16 billion* to do so, buying up shares at an average price of between $444 and $488, according to some back-of-the-napkin math by Apple 2.0 and Asymco.

A massive purchase, indeed. For the same money, Apple could have acquired Nokia. Or BlackBerry and HTC together, with cash left over. As Dediu quips, "One way to think of it, is this is Apple's greatest acquisition ever."

Clearly, Apple has a very bullish view of its own future, and is confident that its share price is headed upward - despite the beating it has taken in the past few months.

* $4 billion in cash + $12 billion via an accelerated share repurchase program

No Dice: Zynga Decides to Abandon Real-Money Gaming Efforts in the U.S.

In its lackluster second-quarter report today, at the very bottom of its press release, Zynga made a very important strategic announcement, saying that it would not pursue real-money gaming in the U.S.

It added that it would continue to evaluate its tests of such gaming products in the United Kingdom, where betting is legal. U.S. online gaming, in comparison, requires Zynga and others to jump a series of long-term and difficult hurdles.

While some investors had been counting on the potentially lucrative online business to be a potential growth area for the troubled San Francisco online social gaming company, management said it has decided to focus on fixing its core business instead.

Said Zynga in a statement:

"Zynga believes its biggest opportunity is to focus on free to play social games. While the Company continues to evaluate its real money gaming products in the United Kingdom test, Zynga is making the focused choice not to pursue a license for real money gaming in the United States. Zynga will continue to evaluate all of its priorities against the growing market opportunity in free, social gaming, including social casino offerings."

No surprise, given this surprise, Zynga's stock is off 14 percent so far in after-hours trading.

Amazon's Q2 Is a Miss

JOE KLAMAR/AFP/GettyImages

First quick look at Amazon's earnings numbers, and it's a miss.

The online retail giant posted a loss, at an EPS of minus two cents on revenue of $15.7 billion.

Though Amazon's net sales rose 22 percent compared to the year-ago quarter, it's a disappointing miss against analysts' expectations that the company would post earnings per share of four cents to six cents on $15.74 billion in revenue.

"This past quarter, our top 10 selling items worldwide were all digital products - Kindles, Kindle Fire HDs, accessories and digital content," CEO Jeff Bezos said in a canned statement. (Of course, with no actual sales numbers on the amount of Kindle products sold - as always.)

Not a ton of color in this release as to why Amazon missed, nor are there any notes on AmazonFresh, the company's experimental grocery delivery service. Hopefully, CFO Tom Szkutak will address these points on the conference call with analysts coming up shortly.

Shares of Amazon were trading off around two percent on the news, at around $297 per share.

Parenting Star Wars win!

Damn T-Rex-a-Roos

Geek pick up lines

Would have rather had this than Jar Jar…

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and Xperia Play receive update

It looks like Sony Ericsson is doing a good job of keeping its Android phones updated - it has just announced the release of a new update for the Xperia Arc and Xperia Play. The update doesn't bring the phones past Android 2.3.3, but it does include some new features to improve the entertainment experiences on the phone.

Some of the new features of the update include: xLoud - a boost for your music when it's played through the phone's speakers, Stereo recording - the ability to shoot video with high-quality stereo sound, Digital home - the feature to let you stream content from your phone onto DLNA devices, and some new themes and a landscape mode for your home screen.

The update is for Xperia Arc and Xperia Play phones, and it's not available to everyone yet but it should be rolled out to everybody within the next few weeks (though there will be certain markets excluded from getting this update). Check for updates by going to Menu > Settings > About Phone > System Updates or connect the phone to your computer and run the PC Companion software.

ASUS Eee Pad MeMO 3D delayed until 2012 and facing axe

Bad news if you were holding out for ASUS' 7-inch Eee Pad MeMO 3D tablet, with word that the glasses-free 3D slate has been delayed until 2012 at the earliest and may not, in fact, launch at all. An ASUS Netherlands spokesperson told TabletsMagazine that the MeMO 3D had been further delayed beyond the most recent September/October launch estimate, and that its future now hung in the balance.

No reason for the new delay has been given, only the comment that "if the tablet is launched, it will not make its appearance until some time in 2012." Originally, ASUS planned to get the Eee Pad MeMO on shelves earlier in 2011, having announced it back in January 2011, but delays involved in granting it 3D capabilities meant that first timescale was missed.

ASUS isn't the only company to have struggled with a 7-inch Android tablet. Various companies - including Acer, with its Iconia Tab A100 - intended to release models early this year, but issues with how Android Honeycomb, Google's tablet-specific version of the platform, dealt with smaller displays forced them to reconsider. With the release of Android 3.2 in mid-July, several timescales restarted, but it seems ASUS isn't quite up to the same speed as everyone else.

Facebook Security Gets a Boost on Mobiles

The Facebook Safety Team has just announced that Facebook is adding new security features to the Facebook apps, and Facebook for mobile sites.

Facebook's social reporting is now available from mobile devices, so you can act quicker on content that is associated to you. For example, you can ask Facebook to take action if you don't like a Facebook photo of you that was uploaded by a third party. This functionality is now accessible via m.facebook.com.

Secondly, Facebook now lets users reset their passwords from mobile devices. Again, this can make a difference if your account has been hacked and you need to lock it down quickly. As usual, a recovery password will be sent to the email address that you have on file. There are other means of verifying your identity, we assume by adding questions like financial services do.

How much do you care about Facebook security? Is a potential breach high on your list of worries?

Google Search Android App Update Teased By Google

The last time Google updated its Android search app, it was ten months ago, and was a relatively minor collection of mostly bugfixes. Well, there's still no new Google Search app out just yet, but it looks like one is set to arrive any day now. Google itself seems to have inadvertently leaked this news, posting this morning about the update on its mobile blog, only to subsequently take the post down.

From the time that the post did remain on the site, we can see that this new version was supposed to add a few features, like location-based results taking into account what country you're in, and new groupings for the suggestions that pop up as you enter your search terms. Changes to the the app's UI promise to make it easier to use, and newly-optimized code should leave you with a Google Search experience that is both faster and more consistent.

We've got no idea just when Google will actually release this update, but from the sound of things, it was all ready to go. It's possible some bug was spotted at the last moment, and if that's the case, we could expect to see the corrected update hit the Android Market within the next day or so.